What Increases the File Size of Excel Workbooks?

AC1982 · May 9, 2011

Hi,

At work we use Excel for the modeling of financial data. We have a standard template that can be modified to add more sheets and increase it in size.

Some workbooks after they are modified can have anywhere from 200-1200 worksheets.

As an example, one workbook with 508 sheets in it has a file size of 158Mb. But I have worked with files as big as 400Mb.

However as an example this 158Mb file has a number of macros in the VBA modules and ThisWorkBook module.

I initially thought that the file size was due to the macros so I removed them and the file size shrunk by only 1 Mb.

I then extracted all the sheets indivually and they collectively amounted to 97Mb.

However the complete file is about 158Mb which means there is an extra 60Mb that I cannot account for. Does anyone know why?

I am trying to reduce file sizes and I am at a loss as to how to do this. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Firecop1348 · May 9, 2011

I cant tell you why the size is so different, I cant think of any good reason. To save space and make the file smaller you can right click on the file, go to Properties> click on advanced> you will see a box that sayes Compress or encrypt attributes. Check compress and ok. This cuts my size in half for mine. I dont know what it may do for yours.
Please make a copy of the workbook before trying anything just to be safe.

Robert Mika · May 9, 2011

I came across workbook where data where copied from different worksheets and person who copied those data did not highlight the used are just the whole sheets so that in fact copied all 65000 cell(Ex 03).
That caused the workbook to increase in size.

chuckchuckit · May 9, 2011

I have had worksheet file sizes increase in size if just one character is in a cell located far to the right of the regular data or far below regular data.

The file size seems to include all cells inbetween even if no data is in the rest of them.

Also I have had some mega increases in file sizes when I have done a number of queries and did not delete the location they were downloaded into.

I currently have a minor bug I have not fixed in one program that keeps getting bigger in size after each query unless I manually delete the whole query data received location. But since I do not save the file I have not fixed this problem, but it does make the file massivly bigger if I were to save it. For some reason deleting this query data location with a Macro does not fix the problem.

What Increases the File Size of Excel Workbooks?

AC1982

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Firecop1348

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Robert Mika

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chuckchuckit

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What Increases the File Size of Excel Workbooks?

AC1982

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Excel Facts

Firecop1348

Board Regular

Robert Mika

MrExcel MVP

chuckchuckit

Well-known Member

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